


red sky at morning (sailors take warning)

by lovethybooty



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Capitol Captives, Coping, F/M, Hijacked Peeta (sort of), Implied/Referenced Torture, Panem, Singing, The Capitol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 01:46:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7555360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovethybooty/pseuds/lovethybooty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annie tries to be anywhere but the present until a hand- cold, but warmer than anything she’s touched in weeks- is on her's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	red sky at morning (sailors take warning)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this last night at like 1:30 because I couldn't sleep. It seems I'm always up writing late, huh?
> 
> Just a small glimpse of Annie, Peeta, and Johanna's time as Capitol captives.
> 
> Happy (sad) Reading! :)

The floor is cold and damp against bare skin, but her legs had finally given out and collapsed beneath her.

Peeta sits with his back to the wall one cell over. He’s been groaning and muttering and cursing under his breath for a few hours now. It worries her, but she’s pushed it to the back of her mind because Johanna is still screaming bloody murder across the hall.

Annie crawls to the front of her cell, wiggles her hand through thick bars and lets it hang. She imagines she’s on Finnick’s boat. When it cruises, wind whips through her hair and sticks to her face. It’s not at all like the stringy hair plastered to her right now.

She closes her eyes, tries to feel the salt on her skin. It doesn’t work, because all she can feel is the cement beneath her and the beads of sweat pooling on her forehead. She’s had a fever for days, how many she’s lost count, but still can’t seem to sweat it out.

Annie tries to be anywhere but the present until a hand- cold, but warmer than anything she’s touched in weeks- is on her's. Eyes blink open and she can just barely make out the shape of Peeta through her peripherals. He’s scooted closer to the edge of his cell, somehow managed to extend his arm just enough to reach.

“Hi,” his voice is raspy and weak. Annie wishes he wouldn’t talk, spare her more bad thoughts, but she responds anyway.

“Hello.”

“How are you tonight, Miss Cresta?”

_Is it nighttime?_

Annie laughs. The question isn’t funny, but she’s only ever been called “Miss Cresta" a handful of other times in her life and she feels like she’s dead and she can’t even remember what Peeta Mellark looks like at this point. She keeps this to herself, however, instead resolves with, “Absolutely, positively stellar. And you, Mr. Mellark?”

He doesn’t answer- at least not out loud- and they’re both quiet for a while. Annie eventually lets her head fall to rest against the brick wall, but keeps hold of his hand.

Peeta is the first to speak again. It’s a childlike whisper and he sounds so small, so afraid.

“Annie,” he begins with shaky breath, “do you know any lullabies?”

Annie thinks for a moment, shakes her head. “No,” she pauses for a beat, “but Finnick taught me a working song once.”

“Can you sing it?”

Annie nods in response, forgets that he can’t see her face. “Yes,” she finally chokes out.

 _'Cause her hair was green as seaweed_  
_Her skin was blue and pale_  
_I loved that girl with all my heart_  
_I only liked the upper part_  
_I did not like the tail_

It’s the only part Annie can remember, so she sings it over and over and over until her throat is raw and Peeta finally goes limp. She drops his hand, recoils back into her cell, hugs her knees impossibly close to her chest.

She closes her eyes again. Thinks of Finnick this time. She can hear him singing to her. _I don’t think I’d like you half as much if you had a tail_ , he’d teased. Then she remembers that Finnick is dead. Well, she’s pretty sure he is anyway. She doesn’t really know anymore, because they’ve told her so many different stories that it’s gotten hard to keep up and words run together in her mind like a bad shipwreck.

She wipes away dry tears, vows not to think of him again. At least not while she is all alone. When Annie finally falls asleep, she dreams she is a siren with blue skin, swimming through a red sky at dawn.


End file.
